At the mercy of madmen

Writing a political blog can be overwhelming. This country is at the mercy of madmen, and the head honcho is sitting in the Oval Office. The madness rolls in in daily waves – of tsunami proportions.

Did some master propagandist like Karl Rove, who has recently shown he has no qualms about lying to rewrite history, sit down and tell this administration: if we do enough bad things on a daily basis, the people, the Congress and the media will be so overwhelmed they simply cannot or will not do anything about it?

This is not uninformed speculation on my part; I’ve been monitoring this bunch since January 2001.

First, there was Rove himself, blaming the Democrats for “pushing” the vote on Iraq and saying the GOP didn’t want “to politicize” the potential for war in the run-up to Election 2002.

Then, there’s Bush using our troops as a fulcrum to convince Americans that if Congress doesn’t continue issuing him blank checks for Iraq NOW, the military will run out of money. Secretary of Defense Gates himself has contradicted this claim in statements before Congress.

The president of the United States then insulted the U.S. Congress by saying it had “done nothing.” I watched on C-SPAN as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada was the first to rise and speak as that body reconvened after its Thanksgiving break. Reid was incredulous that Bush would make such a blanket statement, then enumerated exactly what the legislative branch HAS done, despite Republican opposition and Bush vetoes.

Word comes next that Paul Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraq war, after scandal led to his firing as president of the World Bank, will be brought back into the Bush administration – as an expert on, of all things, “weapons of mass destruction.” (Ironically, that was CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson’s area of expertise!)

Now comes the National Intelligence Estimate – the NIE - a product of 16 U.S. intelligence entities, with findings on Iran which are certain to make Bush and this country the laughing-stock of the world. And, Bush with his sabre-rattling talk of World War III, stated he only found out about the NIE’s findings two weeks ago.

If further proof of madness is needed, here’s what former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton told Wolf Blitzer in CNN’s “The Situation Room” yesterday at 4 p.m. ET. (LINK) Read the following exchange and ask yourself if we can really wait until Bush leaves office in 412 days to put an end to this madness.

Blitzer asked war hawk Bolton if the NIE had changed his mind on Iran. (Bush told reporters yesterday that it had not changed his mind.)

“No,” Bolton said. “I think in the first place there is an artificial distinction in this Estimate between so-called civil activities and military activities.

“The Estimate itself says Iran continues its uranium enrichment program; and what that means is Iran is building up an inventory of at least low-enriched uranium, that it's at Iran's discretion when to convert that fissile material into a nuclear weapon.

“So, I think there are a lot of questions about this Estimate, which is only an analyst's judgment. And, I don't think I would change my view of the threat that Iran poses.”

Blitzer pointed out that the new NIE “clearly would indicate that the president and all of his top advisers who were so worried about Iran's nuclear threat were wrong.”

“Right. Well, that's one reason I'm suspicious about the conclusion here, that this took four years to find out,” Bolton said. “And, by the way, two agencies dissent from that conclusion. And, even what was published says that the NIE itself only has moderate confidence that the suspension in 2003 continues today, and that there are gaps in our intelligence. I think there's a real risk here of over-judging what the intelligence community found, and that there is a real risk of disinformation on the part of Iran.”

Blitzer asked Bolton for clarification: “You're saying that this new NIE … is potentially wrong? Is that what you're saying? And, that it was released for what, political purposes?”

Bolton replied, “Well, I think it's potentially wrong. But, I would also say many of the people who wrote this are former State Department employees who, during their career at the State Department never gave much attention to the threat of the Iranian program. Now, they are writing as members of the intelligence community, the same opinions that they had four and five years ago.”

President Bush, Blitzer pointed out, says he has confidene in the new NIE. He also reminded Bolton that, according to Bush, the entire U.S. intelligence-gathering community has been revamped since faulty intel led us into war in Iraq, and the president himself says he has “total confidence” in this NIE.

To that Bolton replied, “Well, I have to say I don't. I think there's a very real risk here that the intelligence community is like generals fighting the last war. They got Iraq wrong, and they're overcompensating by understating the potential threat from Iran.”

So, according to Mr. Bolton, when they got it wrong, they got it right, and when they get it right, they’ve gotten it wrong. Although the former ambassador recently declared, “I am not a neocon,” that sure sounds like neoconspeak to me.

Now, what could possibly be more scary than that? The fact that about 35 percent of the voting-age people in this country are not even registered to vote and only 65 percent of those registered actually vote. Far too many Americans have no idea all this is going on.

There might be one thing above all to be feared: a free press which has forfeited its mission as government watchdog.

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See a brief, related quote on my blog, “DemWit:” LINK